Former Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame has raised concerns about what he describes as troubling developments in the conduct of criminal prosecutions and law enforcement processes in Ghana.
Speaking on Joy News, Mr Dame condemned the manner in which some prosecutions are handled, noting that individuals are sometimes exposed to public humiliation and reputational damage before the state is able to establish sufficient evidence against them.
He expressed serious concerns about fairness and the protection of individual rights in the case involving former NAFCO CEO Abdul-Wahab Hanan and other accused persons.
“After bastardising them in the eyes of the public, holding them to ransom, tearing their reputation to shreds and saying that they have committed stealing and all that, and finding that indeed there is no evidence at all to support the charges and that the prosecution would not be as smooth as he [the Attorney General] wanted, [they] decided to withdraw [the case] and then resort to extrajudicial harassment. It cannot be possible,” he said.
“I think good men in the country will have to wake up. If indeed we have good men who are actually in charge of the processes of law enforcement, we will not be doing that,” he added.
Mr Dame’s remarks follow the rearrest of the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO), Abdul-Wahab Hanan, and his wife.